


The past and the future in your hand

by shihoran



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic, the foxhole court
Genre: Fluff, I just had a lot of feelings, M/M, hand holding, more or less.., this is really cheesy i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 18:05:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10645206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihoran/pseuds/shihoran
Summary: It started with me wanting Andrew and Neil to have an excuse to hold hands, but I kinda went overboard with it and it ended up being a soundboard for thoughts and very warm feelings for both of them. Written in Andrew's POV.





	The past and the future in your hand

Andrew woke in the twilight between an old and a new day.

He laid sideways on the bed, his shirt stuck to the sweat of his back a nightmare had left him as souvenir; his breathing was shallow. For a moment, his eyes sought for his own hand, before he figured the weight of his pillow on its back and the absence of a blade beneath his fingers.

In his mind, he started to run down a few staple questions: What day is it? What time is it? Where is he? Is he alone? He tried to sit up, but any order given was met with rigid silence from his body. Andrew inhaled. Slowly. Consciously. Filled his lungs to the brim with air and held it there before the body's reflex kicked in and pushed it back out just to breathe again. At least this wasn't broken.

Andrew decided to stay still for the while and listened. There was nothing to break the silence except for his own heartbeat that only steadied then. He dragged his hand from under the pillow and traced the warmth his arm left behind and then the empty space before him. His fingers spread across the cold sheets, where usually Neil would have been.

He felt his brows knit at the thought; thought about how he must have woken up earlier with Neil's weight shifting on the bed, about how the cool morning air must have breezed through the room as he left, about the soft clicking of the door, because he knows how careful Neil was not to disturb him. Andrew must have fallen asleep immediately during or afterwards, because he only remembered the scenes dimly, and it was not only how naturally he thought of the place next to him to belong to no other than Neil, that startled him, but how easy vulnerability came to him when he felt Neil's presence - when he could ease quietly back into comfort, because of Neil.

Hazel eyes fell onto his hand, his palm as he turned the limb, the scars across his veins that rested as silent witness of a price paid in full. Before he could latch onto that mental minefield though, the door clicked quietly open and familiar steps hushed into the room, closing the door shut with just as much care. Ruffled, sweaty, and sticky auburn hair and striking blue eyes peeked around the corner to meet Andrew's bland gaze. A smile tugged at one corner of Neil's mouth and it was as if the world skipped the beat into the morning, as light fell through the shutters of the windows. As if Neil could will the sun to shine. As if Neil had somehow, incredibly, for whatever unfathomable reason, brought light to Andrew's life. Andrew scoffed at the thought.

„Hey.“, Neil said, pulling him out of his mocking mind. Andrew acknowledged him with a hum. His eyes flicked back to his palm without noticing Neil's smile fading before he approached the bed and crouched down into line of sight. Neil's palm patted the sheets, but his eyes locked onto Andrew's hand covering part of each of their faces.

„Can I lay with you?“, Neil asked after a while.  
„You're sweaty.“  
„You didn't mind that last night.“

Andrew's eyes narrowed just so slightly before retreating his hand, leaving room for Neil to drop next to him. The mattress shifted under his body, bounced with each movement, and then rested again when Neil found a comfortable position, which apparently included them facing each other. They laid there in silence for a while and Andrew felt Neil's eyes trying to pierce his features.

„You're staring again.“ Andrew said, after some moments.  
„You do, too.“ Neil shot back with placidity in his voice no one asked for. „I didn't know you picked up palm reading while I was gone.“

A roundabout way of asking an obvious question, but it also was telling about how much attention Neil gave to details. Not only was this about being careful in the mornings, but when it came to Andrew, Neil always found a way to see what no one else could or should. Andrew felt a heat fill his chest, daring to burn through his insides. He quickly labelled this feeling as annoyance and refused to think about it further, at least for now. His eyes flicked over to Neil's hand that rested near his own.

„No one could read anything off yours even if they tried.“  
„Do you want to read mine?“

Andrew arched a brow. Neil seemed to hesitate for a moment, but pulled up his hand anyway to have his palm face Andrew. Silence fell between them, but this time it was welcomed by both, while Andrew's eyes studied the scars. There were white, bumpy streaks, long and short, thick and thin and there were almost perfectly round blotches in between, were it not for the ragged edges where skin tried to pull itself together. Skin, that was unfeeling and too smooth and too strange to the touch. Skin, that bore witness to relentless, capricious violence. Skin, that was Neil's – and to that extent, was his own. Even if Andrew didn't believe in revenge, he very well believed in protecting what was his and that the offender and everyone involved deserved a slow and excruciatingly painful death.

„Andrew.“

Andrew looked up and caught his own face warped in anger in Neil's eyes. He had fallen so deeply into his own headspace, that he didn't even notice his own hand clenching at the sheets, knuckles white. The blond willed himself to calm down, until the anger melted back into indifference. He knew well enough that there was no one to direct his anger to, not anymore, because the Moriyamas had taken care of that, and guilt was out of the question for him. A waste of time. Both of them shared that thought and studied each other, before Neil offered him a ground to stand on.

„I survived.“, Neil said, steadily. „I am alive.“

Andrew felt the world tilt at those words. It's true. Much like sunrise, much like Abram, much like death; this, also, was truth. Neil was alive and here and by his side. He nodded and allowed himself to find – he dared to think it – comfort in those words and his eyes to resume their way across the scars and landmarks and discovered places untouched by violence. His fingertips touched those places before he knew better, and he caught Neil blinking at him in mild confusion. Though, now that he had already started, he might as well continue.

„Palm reading?“, Neil asked.  
„Palm reading.“, Andrew echoed.

The scars crooked funny and created little bumps wherever the skin naturally folded and after he was sated by studying those places as well, Andrew stretched his own fingers, unfolding the other's while doing so, and pressed his palm fully against Neil's. Neil's palm was wider, he felt. Sturdier in a way his hand wasn't. Maybe it was because of his own skin ghosting into an almost sicklish white, maybe it was because of his fingers being thin and boney and cold. There was a story told by these hands and these hands alone, a past that they couldn't forget, but that will not hold them down, because Neil survived. Neil lived.

„Found anything about my future?“  
Andrew gave him a bored look. „Me, strangling you.“  
„So.“ Neil grinned. „You're staying with me?“  
Andrew's hand twitched before he could stop himself and glared coolly at Neil. „Only to end you.“  
„But you're here. And you'll stay.“  
He couldn't have this. No way in hell he could have this. „I hate you.“

„Andrew.“ Neil's voice was filled so much warmth for his name, that it spilled over, pouring into Andrew's chest and threatened to burn him alive if he wouldn't do something about it sooner than later. But he didn't do anything; and laid perfectly still, stubbornly locking onto those quiet blue eyes – before those flicked for just one moment to the gap between their hands.

„Can I?“, he asked.  
Andrew frowned. „Can you what?“  
„Can I hold your hand?“

The silence that followed felt like it would stretch itself into another eternity, and Andrew would have continued staring at this man before him with his stupid face and stupid questions and those stupid eyes daring to meet him with genuine care, that Andrew considered stabbing himself in the face to make his own stupid thoughts shut up. Instead, Andrew held onto Neil's hand with a firm grip, propped himself up and coerxed Neil to flip onto his back, with both their hands stuffed into the pillow next to his head. Neil's eyes stared up at him with a different kind of heat waiting to be ignited, but he kept his free hand to himself, and Andrew wouldn't pass on a chance to return the favour of being set aflame, bit by bit by bit.

„Yes or no?“

„Yes.“, Neil said and didn't even bat an eye, instead he dared to squeeze their hands. Andrew closed the gap between their lips and immediately took the invitation of an open mouth, taking his time tasting and teasing Neil with kisses and licks and tugs on his lips. When he felt that propping himself up with a hand was too much of a waste of opportunities to map Neil out, Andrew swung his leg over Neil's and settled on his thighs. He caught a faint sound between their lips and parted as he felt his hand being squeezed. Neil looked ragged, more than he already had been before he returned from his morning run; his breath came in short bursts and it made him look almost fragile, as if he'd just melt beneath Andrew's fingertips if touched just right.

A part of Andrew didn't like this. He could run him over with his desire, could destroy him in the like of all the others that touched Andrew before, and, Neil being Neil, might have not been able to stop him in his own dazed mind. Andrew didn't notice his own ragged breath until now and he willed himself to calm down, to momentarily take him out of the situation and assess this and Neil and himself. Andrew could have hurt Neil countless of times before, and furthermore could have used Neil to hurt himself. As to which option would have been more painful to either of them, he couldn't tell, but in the end, he would become a monster. According to others, he already was, but he was not going to become that kind of monster. Someone who tears the human shell and leaves cracks in souls a lifetime could not heal. Someone who takes and takes and takes and leaves nothing but shards and blood and tears.

„Andrew.“ Blue eyes tore him out of his mind again this morning and for a second he felt too exposed, too vulnerable, too much like something he thought he had cast away long time ago. Too human. „Neil.“, he said after a while, returning to the situation and his eyes found his own hand clenched sweaty and tight against Neil's palm. It betrayed him, he thought. His own hand betrayed him.

„We can stop if you want to.“ Neil's voice was like the eye of the storm; quiet and secure and offering him a way out of his own storm, without hurting either of them. Andrew's hand relaxed, but let the fingers interlocked and the blood return to their digits. Neil's hand was warm, like the rest of his body now. Neil's breath was quiet, just like his eyes now. Neil was alive. Neil was real. Andrew bent down, much to the other's surprise, but instead of their lips meeting, it was their foreheads pressing together in just as lazy in the manner as the touch of their hands.

Both of them knew that Andrew didn't touch people without purpose. Continuing to pursue this situation to its completion, however one would define that, would go against this, so he stopped; wanting distance between them. Their hands unlocked and Andrew climbed off him. When his eyes returned to catch the other's, he couldn't help but notice the messy hair and remember the faint scent of freshly dried sweat on him.

„You're still sweaty.“, he noted.

„You still don't mind.“, Neil answered with a tug to his lips, but got himself off the bed to move towards the bathroom, kicking his running shoes off his feet as he went. Andrew scrutinized him for wearing shoes to bed, but didn't comment on it. He took the time to gather his own clothes to change into and his eyes fell onto the black armbands first.

He felt stiff and strange and filled with something he didn't want to keep in fear of losing it. It was strange to be and feel this way. It was so strange that he almost forgot that he felt nothing at all most of the times. Nothing, or rather, the concept of apathy that filled his body with pressure where there should be none; left him feeling hollowed, but filled to the brim with nothing to be felt. And then there was Neil, who said he was nothing. And the thought of Neil filling his silence with his breath and warmth alone was enough, he thought. Neil was enough.

This, however, tilted him. Neil tilted him. Maybe it was his weight that filled him in the places where Nothing had not spread out to yet and those places were in the tips of his fingers, between the thoughts in his head, and sometimes even the lips. He tilted, forward. He fell. He fell, while being so terribly afraid of heights. Neil didn't change the world, but Neil changed Andrew.

This was... something, but Andrew refused to place a name on it.  
To make a pipe dream tangible and thus breakable, tasted like its own kind of nightmare.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
